Lightroom vs. Photoshop? Pls help

[comapedrosa]

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Ok, I give in. I have come to the realization that I need to spend more time on post-processing and RAW conversion… even more so if I go all RAW with the M8. Therefore, I need to pick my platform. From what I read here and there, Lightroom's aim is to be a 2nd generation post-processing tool by seamlessly integrating RAW into the "workflow". That sounds great. At the same time I heard that it is not supposed to "replace" Photoshop’s image editing functions. So here's my question: what do I miss if I get married to Lightroom as opposed to Photoshop CS2 + Camera RAW?

Thank you in advance for your advice,

C

PS: for better or for worse, I need to stick to Wintel and therefore Aperture is not an option... or is it?

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[Gene]

I've been using Photoshop CS2 and tried using Lightroom, but I stopped because I couldn't see any advantage Lightroom offered. The combination of Photoshop, Bridge, and Camera Raw in CS2 does everything Lightroom does and a lot more, and on the whole I found it less easy to work with because of the way it stores files.

[jrc]

I use both and I'm looking forward to dumping Photoshop. The question you've got to ask yourself is whether you're essentially a straight photographer who does most of the work with the camera, and then touches up in post-processing, or whether you are essentially a photo-illustration artist, and see the original shot(s) as just the starting point. In the latter case, you will need Photoshop. There are some things missing in Lightroom that you might want, like Curves. They may be added later. But: you can now get curves and distortion correction in the new version of Photoshop Elements (just announced yesterday, I think; if you call up Digital Photography Review, it's the first item in news.) And Elements costs about $80, I believe, rather than the $700 you'd pay for a full Photoshop. Lightroom can be downloaded from the Adobe site for free -- it's now in Beta Three. Versions are available for both Windows and Mac. I think it's great, although it has a few holes. Anyway, if I were you, I'd download it, play with it, and then see if it's missing anything you need to pay $700 for.

 

JC

[comapedrosa]

JC, you're dead on. One of the reasons why I got the D2 a while back, was because of numerous reports that straight-out-of-camera jpegs were excellent (there were even some early reports of people not achieving better results in RAW that jpeg).

Cost is not such a big issue. It's time that's scarce, and I don’t want to start investing in a platform I’ll end up abandoning a few months later.

Thanks for the good advice from both you and Gene!

[ho_co]

JC--In the Adobe Iceland tour, some of the photographers had a hard time getting over the loss of 'Curves,' but they seemed all gradually convinced by the new function Adobe is using to replace the function. (More info available in the Podcasts and notes from the trip. I haven't tried Lightroom, so I can't speak to the changes; Reichmann has a video intro available that may go into that. As you said, 'Curves' may come back later.) A couple of the photographers still went to Photoshop for some tweaking, but apparently most found Lightroom suitable as is.

 

comapedrosa--At the moment, I'm not sure anyone can answer your question. Are you already comfortable in Photoshop? If so, you have the more powerful program, even if you seldom use its power. If not, recognize that Lightroom is designed for the photographer without all the frills of Photoshop, just as jrc said, and many of its functions are named the way we photographers expect them to be, so it should be easier to learn. However, the Windows version of Lightroom apparently still lags the Mac version so far, so you'll still need to wait a bit.

 

re Aperture: Jury still out. Apple is risking offending Adobe by offering competition; and users' initial reactions vary. Apple will be at Photokina, so check their offerings then. And if Aperture grows to do what you want but Apple still doesn't offer it for Wintel boxes, remember that the current Intel-based Macs all run both Windows and Mac OS X .

 

--HC

[Guest stnami]

Lightroom - Photographers who use raw and are photographers

Photoshop - Graphic artists mainly and the small group of photographers who need to fix a lot of their mistakes

Lightrtoom/ Photoshop combined plus all the plugins for the photographer who wants go beyond photography but stay within the genre of photography

[Jamie Roberts]

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This is kind of a dodge as a reply, but I find I use a bunch of different RAW processors.

 

Oddly enough, Bridge and PS aren't among them, usually, which mainly has to do with ease of workflow. PS is too much of a "Swiss Army Knife" for images to be a really effective RAW process tool.

 

C1 wins hands down I think for "out-of-the-box" balance between quality and workflow, at least with the Leica DNG files the DMR produces.

 

SilkyPix, perhaps because they're reportedly using a whole slew of Kodak color technologies, is the fastest at working with DNG files by a country mile. Quality is also exceptional, but it's not as flexible as C1 and not nearly as easy to use on a large number of files.

 

But it is fast! No kidding--while PS CS2 is writing XML files SilkyPix has finished processing my output Ok, it's not quite that fast, but with the uncompressed DNGs Leica likes to use it is by far the fastest on a Wintel platform, and that's pretty important when you've got about 1000 files to look through.

 

Lightroom actually looks very, very promising, and all the more since they snapped up the guys from Raw Shooter / RSP. But the beta I've tried, anyway, is still very slow.

[dhsimmonds]

I agree with Jamie. I also use Silkypix (pro version that allows cropping and printing), Rawshooter Pro version and Lightroom for processing my DMR DNG files. I also use C1 LE version which is probably the quickest and possibly the best quality image, but not as flexible or intuitve as RSP. I cannot get on very well with Lightroom.........it is ooh so slow and not very intuitive in my opinion.

 

I do not need PS CS feaures very often but it is always nice to have it for that especially difficult image! I am a photographer first and artist very much second!

 

I just wish that Iview Media Pro worked with DNG raw files for DAM work....it half works but the colours are awful making it useless for DMR work in my opinion.

 

Cheers, Dave

[wide.angle]

I am evaluating Lightroom, and I find that I can edit (color correction, sepia, sharpening, etc) many images very quickly in that program as opposed to Photoshop. For the things I mentioned, I find Lightroom much easier to use and more intuitive. The main thing I now use PS for is the healing brush to get rid of dust on my scans.

 

Note: Of course Lightroom is beta and doesn't actually modify the image so there is some risk that your "changes" to the images could be lost when switching to the full version when it becomes available. Just my 2 cents.

[vic vic]

i really dont understand how the photoshop can be compared to the lightroom.

 

photoshop is a serious software - a trully proffessional (full color management and everything u may wish). ligt room is nice but in my opinion, like aperture it is rather more sofisticated i-photo, nothing more as yet. for many things it might be enough (especialy the aperture) but those are simply little naive kids compared to photoshop. maybe in the future.

 

immants - sure it is great for graphics, but dont forget its highest standarts as digital photo tool.

 

for convinience - u will have a very fine file browser - the "bridge". believe me - in practice this combo is better than the bulky all-in-one aperture and lightroom.

[comapedrosa]

Thank you all for these well informed responses. This thread has clearly grown beyond the simple (simplistic?) answer I was looking for. I will have to study the diverse alternatives presented here in more detail later. In the meantime I am happy that it has generated an interesting comparison of tools used (at a time where we all seem to be totally hooked on the M8 threads )

[Guest stnami]

Vic no disrespect but the highest digital photo tool is getting it right with the camera, light reading , white balance, focus and content, then you only need a good raw processor.

Mind you I use CS2, Lightroom, Lightzone,alien skin exposure and Painter yes a lot but I like to play around with stuff and alter images.

[vic vic]

oh ya immants, that is so obvious and true (i even forgot to mention it :-))))

 

also, try the silverfast hdr stidio it is amazing... think about photoshop power (in its photographic "section")), silverfas it is even better and more precise usually. the closest u can get to film richness.

"photographically", from what i see, only the flexcolor imacon and oxygen crreo/kodak are supperior to all. but the comparison is really unfair, since those are so well integrated softwares with thier own hardwares. u make a scan so eassily (especialy the slides). technically nothing left to desire, it is almost like seeing the slide on light table. u can get it to photoshop afterwards for fine tuning with your artistic mind.

 

about, aperture and lightroom, dont take me wrong, they are really cool and modern etc... but to bulky, a bit slow (this is not real "real-time correction" when there is no full corelation between your sliders movements and changes that appear, u will not see such delays n photoshop, and silverfast with its system can take with ease even 50-100mb files - it adds to the stream of work alot).

"devide de impera" is very good way oposed to that all-in-one solutions of aperture and lightroom. :-)))) then put it into i-photo - it is like i-tunes for photos, as a browser and gallery viewer it works faster than aperture and lightroom, on any computer i saw:-)))))